Homecoming: Or how the Epilogue SHOULD have gone
by Sam F Parker
Summary: I know I'm about ten years late to this fandom, but the ending punched me in the gut and I had to write this to fix things. Like Dru and Graves' hearts and hopefully mine in the process. So, obviously major spoilers for the entire series. Basically Graves' point of view when he comes back. Unabashedly Dru x Graves Chapter 2: Ash's recovery
1. Homecoming

He hadn't expected them to just take him to her. But there he was, standing at the big double doors of the council room, and waiting for her guards to push them open. He barely registered Shanks winking at him, he was too busy trying to function through the roaring in his ears that had started up when he realized he was finally going to see _her._

As he made his way towards the council table, his vision automatically sought her out and zeroed in.

She hadn't looked up yet, sitting in a graceful slump with her chin resting on a hand. In anyone else he might have thought they practiced it. If she was the old Dru, it would be thoughtless grace. Was she the old Dru? She was more put together than he was used to: hair pulled back neatly, designer clothes, and even little earrings sparkling in the light. Her beauty was so bright that it throbbed where his old pain lay. But it was distant now, just an old wound aching.

But beyond those changes, there was something else that scared him more. Her face was too still and almost cold. Nothing like the expressive one that betrayed her thoughts, or at least that she was having thoughts. Maybe two years had changed her just as much as it had him. And not necessarily in a good way.

He had only made it a few steps into the room when her head whipped toward him. Her mask of a face did not change but her whole body stiffened. The aspect swept over her once, quickly, and her hair flashed gold. She stood, still staring at him, and he wished he could read her because he had no idea if she was happy to see him or not.

She blinked then turned her head a little. "Bruce, inform me later what the council decides," she said without wholly taking her eyes off of him.

The Middle Eastern man waved a hand. "Of course, Milady."

The second the other man responded responded she was down the steps and headed straight for him. He wasn't sure what to do because she didn't exactly look like she wanted to hug him or punch him. But she was staring with such an intensity now, that it had to be one of them.

Instead she swept right past him with a soft but commanding, "Come on!"

So he turned on his heel and marched after her, feeling like he was getting pulled in her wake again. It was a little comforting to know that some things hadn't changed about her. Although, he hadn't been happy about the feeling of being dragged along with her before he left. Nostalgia was a complicated feeling. Everything about Dru was complicated.

They swept out the door and two of her guards fell in step beside him.

"Graves!" Shanks said. "Wow, is it good to see you. You look really good."

"Thanks, man," Graves said, finally relaxing a little. It had been a couple months since Shanks had last visited with his crew and it was nice to see a friendly face again. "Is she..." he trailed off because what was he going to say? Is she okay? Is she still in love with me? Those sounded too stupid to come out of his mouth.

"She absolutely drilled all of us about you last time we got back," Shanks said with a grin. "Every single one of us. Even though she thought she was being sneaky about it."

Dru glared over her shoulder, and she looked a lot more like the old Dru. "Shut up, Shanks," she ground out.

"Doesn't moon over Christophe at all anymore," Shanks added.

Dru froze in place and then rounded on Shanks, her face red. "Shanks, go away. Find Nat and convince her to suck face with you."

Shanks gave a tiny salute. "If Milady requires it, it shall be done," he said with a shit-eating grin.

Benjamin, the other guard, sighed wearily. "Please do not send him away. You need the protection."

"What does she need me anymore," Shanks said cheerfully. "She's got Graves now." With a final thumbs up to Graves and a wink to Dru, he disappeared down the hallway.

Benjamin gave Graves a dour look and then followed Dru, who had taken off down the hallway. She had her aspect on, and was nearly flying down the hallway. He had to pull on his Other just to keep up with her. It didn't leave much room for speaking.

Last time he had seen Shanks, they had told him about the 'break up' between Christophe and Dru. They hadn't been dating, not according to Nathalie, but had been circling it. Words had been exchanged. Very loud words that, according to Nathalie, were impossible not to hear.

Dru had basically told Christophe that she couldn't be the reason for him to keep living anymore. That he was just as messed up as Graves, and that maybe he should go off and find himself too.

It had given Graves the courage to go through the hardest part of his healing journey. The part he had, admittedly, been putting off for months. Going down into the deepest part of him and touching the raw spots that you-know-who had broken. Allowing himself to feel the last of the pain so he could wash it away.

It had been just as bad as he feared but every time he had to come back up for air, the werewulfen were there. They fed him and danced him with and laughed. It had taken him awhile to get through it all. He hadn't exactly been whole before he had been Broken, and so the tangles of being Broken often had long lines into a painful past that he also had to unwind.

But between all that he had been training too. The wulfen, probably in preparation for this very day, had been teaching him all the politics and history too. He knew they were hoping that he and Dru could change some of that. He did too. But first he had to figure out Dru and where they stood.

After leading him on a merry chase through the school and barely avoiding some of the students at times, they arrived in a part of the Schola that he had never been to before.

"Milady," Benjamin said in a pained tone, "this place is supposed to be a secret."

Dru ignored him and unlocked one of the doors. "Make sure no one comes in, okay Benjamin?"

He sighed. "Okay."

Benjamin barely looked at him as Graves followed Dru into the bright chambers. Graves had gotten used to that. Some things didn't change, it seemed. He was more worried about Dru's reaction to him.

As soon as Graves was in the room, Dru bolted the door and turned on him. The race down the halls had loosened most of her hair from her bun and it fell around her face, making her look a little more like her old self. Still, she just stood there, frozen and staring at him.

"Did you get the letter that said I was coming?" he asked awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets.

She just stared at him a moment longer before her face flushed red and she pulled it out from her jeans pocket. "I got it this morning," she said in a much quieter tone than any he had heard her use yet. She ran a finger along the edge of the unopened envelope. "I like to wait so I can read them in private."

His face warmed. "Oh."

After a last careful trace of her finger over it, she stuffed the letter back into her butt pocket. Then she looked at him, and the ice he had seen at first seemed to freeze over her face again. "Are you staying?" she asked softly, like she was going to choke on it.

He took a deep breath and was really glad that Shanks had told him how desperately she had wanted to hear about him. It helped him not shy away from this. She seemed to be the thing that could still imbalance him. Maybe if you wanted something so badly it would always scare you like this, no matter how strong you got.

"I want to stay," he said. "I guess it depends on how it plays out for you and me."

She shuddered and seemed to hunch in on herself more. He saw her shallow breathing and realized she was trying not to cry.

"Come on," he said gently and lead her to the bed hidden away from the skylights. They both sat down and he said. "Just cry, crying is good for you."

She flashed him a Dru-glare, her blue eyes sparking, before she hugged herself and muttered, "Crying about this is stupid. I'm not going to cry." But even as she said it, a tear tracked down her face and her shoulders hunched even more.

Oh, how he wanted to kiss it all away, but he knew kisses wouldn't fix her nearly as well as good cry would. He had learned that during the darker months. That if you wanted to scream, it was better just to scream. If the crying came, you cried.

He gently pulled her head to his shoulder. "Just cry, Dru. You don't need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps anymore."

She actually sobbed then, a gasping sound, before burrowing her face into his shoulder and making muffled whimpers. Her face was close to where she had bitten him and it was a little work to not flinch. The fang marks in his neck felt her and twinged. But even when she had been almost dead, it had been work convincing her to bite him. There was still some residual fear he would have to work through but he trusted her, even with her teeth this close to his neck.

So he wrapped his arms around her and let her cry. Poor Dru. It looked like neither her aspect or the Schola knew how to fix psychological wounds. While he had been finally putting himself together, she had been stretching to her breaking point. He couldn't fix her, no more than she had been able to fix him, but maybe if he poked at where her wounds weeped then she would see how to fix herself too.

What a pair they were.

He let her cry herself out and rocked her until she finally was willing to relax against him.

"Sorry about your shirt," she muttered into his chest.

"Hey, first one's free," he said lightly.

He could see her lips curling into a smile before another dry sob racked her.

"When was the last time you took a break?" he asked.

She shrugged a little. "I run with the wulfen," she muttered.

"That's good," he said quietly. "But, like a vacation? Catch your breath?"

"I can't do that," she said, sitting up and looking scandalized. "The _nosferat_ still have several strong holds we need to hunt down and our treaty with the Maharaj is still tenuous."

"The council has functioned without you before," he said. "They can do it again. You need a break, Dru."

She frowned. "Graves, this is what being an adult means. Sometimes you have to do stuff that sucks."

"Yeah, sometimes. Not always. Always will get you killed like your father."

She stiffened and glared at him. "Don't-" she started angrily.

"You don't have to be like your father," he said gently. "He was doing the best he could, and I'm glad he kept you safe, but I don't want you to end up the same way as him."

She was still angry. Her blue eyes were flashing and he didn't think she understood was he was trying to say. "I won't," she said with a voice of steel. "I killed Sergej."

This time he couldn't hide his wince. He and Ash seemed to be the only ones still affected by that name, after you-know-who died. But it was like a healing scar. One day that name would be an old scar that didn't hurt no matter what you did to it. He would make sure of that.

"There will always be another Sergej," he said the name on purpose, with a little defiance.

"Yes, that is why I have to-"

"No, Dru. Shut up. Will you listen to me?" he said forcefully, maybe with a little too much of his Other behind it.

She stopped and stared up at him petulantly.

"You think you have to hold everything inside, buck up, and run all out because that is the only way to fix things. But it is going to break you, do you hear me?"

She stared back in confusion.

Confusion he could work with. It was a start.

"Please, you are too precious to break yourself apart for someone else," he said.

She softened. "You have changed, haven't you?" She reached up and brushed away some of his brown hair. "Are you sure you haven't grown out of me?"

He laughed in a soft chuff, "Dru, I held onto you that whole time. You were that shining star that pulled me through the toughest parts, knowing you needed me whole."

She stared at him in wonder. "Maybe," she said as her eyes drunk him in like he was the stars. "Maybe you can teach a little of that to me." She turned a little shy. "So I can be whole for you."

"I will certainly try," he said hoarsely. The magnetism of her bright blue eyes, staring at him as if he was the whole world, well, it was too hard to resist. He leaned in and kissed her.

Just a tentative touch, but the brush sent a scratch of fire through his gut.

She whispered a soft 'oh' of surprise but as soon as he tried to pull away, she pulled him back down and then the kiss wasn't chaste anymore.

For a few minutes he didn't think much about anything but getting more of her, exploring her again, making her gasp those soft little sounds. He only barely caught himself before he tried to pull her shirt off.

Damn. The bed had been a bad idea. He eased away and tried to get a good breath in that wasn't full of her intoxicating cinnamon scent.

"What?" she asked in a hurt tone. "What is it? Do I smell bad? Why do you always stop?"

He laughed into his hands. "Dru, you will be the death of me."

When he only got hurt silence, he knew she didn't understand.

"With you, I loose all my reasoning," he said with a sigh. "I stop because I know I'm hitting the point where I don't have any more control. Just give me a minute."

"Oh," she said again, and she didn't sound hurt anymore. It was that shy tone again. "Is that why you always stop?"

"More or less," he said, voice still muffled by his hands.

"Then you're staying?" she asked, hopeful.

He looked at her then, and got an eyeful of her messy hair, shirt twisted around her middle, and eyes and lips both puffy for different reasons. He knew he could stare at her forever.

"Remember what I said? As long as we can make this work between us, I'll stay forever, I promise."

Her face crumpled and twisted like it wasn't sure whether to smile or cry.

So he said, "Hey, remember your promise?"

Her eyebrows scrunched and she tilted her head, thinking.

"I came back. So now you have to tell me what Dru is short for."

"Oh, that." Her face cleared and she let out a little bark of laughter. She smiled then, looking so hopeful. Maybe she was finally believing that he would stay. Then she raised an eyebrow with a look that said you-better-not-laugh. "Its Lissandru."

"Huh," he said, thinking it sort of fit her. "Does that mean I can call you Liz?"

She rolled her eyes and looked so much like the old Dru that it hurt. In a good way. "Only if you want me to call you Eddie," she said.

"Please don't," he said in a pained tone.

She laughed. "You'll always be Graves, my Goth Boy."

Goth Boy, huh? Maybe he could talk her out of the second part, but hearing his name on her lips again relaxed something in him. "Lissandru," he said, tasting her name. "I've never heard of it before. You know what it means?"

Her mouth pinched and she gave him a self-mocking look. "Saver of man or some shit like that."

He let out a surprised laugh. "Well, there is no irony in that, I guess."

She made an indignant sound and ruefully looked across the room. Her eyes began to cloud and he knew she was thinking about the past. What she had to do to save them all. He knew that look well because he had seen it too many times in the mirror.

"Hey, you've already lived up to that name," he said, tugging at her sleeve to make her look at him again. "I think I'll stick with just Dru, if that's alright with you."

She finally turned to him, her eyes clearing. The ice she kept pulling on around her melted just a little more. She leaned in and surrounded him in cinnamon. Then she kissed him again.

"It's perfect," she said.

...

A/N: Okay, my friends. I know this is a very old ship I'm sailing and I don't know if there will any one interested in reading this. But if you do, and catch any glaring mistakes please let me know.

But man, you can't break a readers heart and then not fix it. It is so not cool. Hopefully this will fix up your heart after the ending like it did mine :)


	2. From the Ashes

When Ash first returned to his human body, it was like being a child again, with no memories or understanding of complex emotions. It was a breath of joy after a long long winter.

Of course, things like that don't last. At least not for him.

Slowly he fell all the way back into being human. It wasn't a gentle fall. Things weren't just safe or unsafe anymore. There were emotions again like guilt and terror and hatred. Things he didn't remember how to cope with anymore. Dru tried to help, she really did, but this wasn't the part of unbreaking that she could help with.

There were times where he would just shake while flashbacks of being Broken beat at him. He didn't want to be touched then. Not even by Dru. If someone tried, his wulfen form would take him and he tried to bite anyone close by.

They took to locking him in the cage again.

Ash didn't care. At least people stopped touching him. Stopped asking him to be okay and to shake it off.

Ash knew he couldn't just shake it off. He didn't remember most of his time as one of the Broken and that was merciful. But his body remembered. It tensed when he was close to the djamphir. It cramped and writhed when he smelled a nosferat and was not allowed to kill it.

Being on missions helped sometimes. Ripping with his teeth and watching the life blood drain from a nosferat helped sometimes. Seeing an injured werewulfen did not help. Seeing any sort of injury on a wulfen nearly paralyzed him with guilt and shame. It would bring on the shaking.

If someone tried to touch him, he would attack, and then that would bring more shame. He didn't know how to explain these things to his comrades. They stopped letting him go on missions. He wasn't sure if that was a good or bad.

Even though his humanity was coming back, it felt more like a shadow of what humanity should have been. Words were hard. He hadn't thought in words, especially English words, in a very long time. Even before being Broken, he wasn't sure if he had had the words to explain what was going on.

So he growled and threatened and tried to make everyone go away so things wouldn't get worse. Of course, this only made him look crazy.

Maybe he was crazy.

With all of this, it didn't take long for everyone to realize that he couldn't stay. It was almost a relief when they packed him off to join Graves.

Graves had more words than Ash, but he was still having a hard time of it too. Were there words to explain being Broken? There were some, but they were the kind of words that polite people liked to forget. As if forgetting those words would also make the bad things go away. It sounded like a stupid plan to Ash but most things seemed stupid to him right now.

Like the werewolfen not letting him join the hunts. Or them thinking he would ever stop be a raving half-Broken wolfen. This was as fixed as he could be. It was as fixed as he could handle.

Fighting to stay this unbroken took most of his will and energy. Why did the werewolfen expect anything more? Or if they really did think he could change, why didn't they show him how to fix himself? Why leave him in this torturous in-between?

These questions nagged at him in the dark hours, accompanied by Graves' screaming. It made him irritable in the mornings and liable to snap at whoever asked him to join breakfast. If they were going to leave him like this, couldn't they at least give him peace and quiet as well?

But peace only came in death. At least that's how it seemed to go for Ash.

So one day he just left.

They hadn't locked him in for a long time. They thought he wanted to be there. Maybe there was a tiny part of him that did. But not enough of him. And not enough to stay.

He left when the sun was high and the compound was at it's most quiet. It was the least likely time to be attacked and so the guards wouldn't be as vigilant. He probably should have told someone he was leaving. But who wouldn't have tried to stop him? No one would have understood.

Besides, he was sure they would let out a breath of relief when he disappeared. He was too needy. Too much work to take care of. No one needed that.

There was a certain freedom as everyone's expectations dripped from him the deeper he hiked into the forest. Sure he wasn't okay, but at least he didn't have to pretend he was okay for anyone either. So he gladly went deeper into the forests that would eventually lead him to the mountains and complete solitude.

Maybe in the mountains he could finally hear himself think. Maybe there he could untangle the pain and anger that roiled in his gut whenever it was quiet. Maybe there he could finally find peace.

It was only after several hours of walking that he thought he should have gotten food before he left. Sure, it would be easy to find something to eat or drink in his wulfen form, but that wasn't how a human would do it. Wasn't he trying to become more human?

Did he still want to be human?

What was so good about being human anyway? Now that he was released from Sergej, he was freed from other's rules as well. Maybe he could just go back to being a wulfen full time. He probably would have transformed that very moment if he hadn't been unsure what to do about his clothes. He might need those someday.

He decided to wait until he had found the place he would make his den. That wouldn't be for another day at least. So he ignored the gnawing hunger and walked.

Long ago he had learned to detached himself from his body and things like hunger or pain. On long 'assignments' for Sergej he wouldn't eat until he had finally completed the directive burned into his mind. In comparison, this was nothing.

On the second day his body had started to list as he walked. It was only when he accidentally brushed against a tree that he came out of his daze. In this state it would be easy to follow him. He needed to stop, rest, and take care of his thirst and hunger.

After he slept that day, he was more careful about his trail, making sure to leave nothing that a nosferat or werewulf could pick up. He hiked for four more days, the lingering sound of cars driving him farther than he had planned. But finally he did not hear the sounds of a highway, construction equipment, or other hikers. Finally his companions were only mountain goats and nervous squirrels.

Then Ash hunted for a place to make his den. He spent more time near weather-worn areas where a bear or cougar was less likely to wish to make their home. With his human hands he could manage to make protection where others might not.

And so his days passed quietly. It was hard work, surviving like this, but it left him little time to think about the past. His emotions were simple again. Safe and unsafe.

Summer was brief and then there was even more work as he prepared for a winter hibernation like all the other animals around him. Even with the extra work, more thoughts had been intruding of late. Did anyone miss him? Or had they all just breathed a sigh of relief and moved on with their lives? Had they even tried to look?

Then winter came. Whenever he didn't need human thumbs he spent his time as a wulfen. It was warm enough, especially when he made fires in one of the deeper caves he had found. But his imagination used the fire to conjure up images of friends or nightmares. Sometimes he turned human just so he could talk to himself. So he could hear a voice out loud and try to ground himself in reality rather than those shifting shadows in the fire.

Yet when he talked, it was about pain and the past. He couldn't help it. Talking opened the dam of all the things he had tried to push down. No matter what he did, he could not find peace in the mountains. He couldn't find peace anywhere. Not when Ash carried the very opposite in his soul.

Whenever he slept, the dreams came back. Nightmares, really. He was so sick of trying to keep everything quiet that there came a time when he just let them come. When he woke up in a cold sweat he would whisper to those who haunted his dreams, the ones that he had killed.

At first it was just a repeated whimper of 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' Eventually, though, he took to telling them about his life with Sergej as well. He asked them what he could have done. He rambled about the images that still haunted him. In the dark corners of the caves he scratched out the worst of the nightmares: the ones with Sergej. Then he beat against them with rocks until the images scratched over and his hands were bloodied.

He screamed his rage and helpless fury at the mountains and listened when they echoed it back to him. He cried brokenly for days that somehow turned into months.

These things continued: him talking in circles and then beating at the rage that still burned in him. He thought about what his friends might say to him if they truly understood. Wondered what he would have told Graves if Graves had been dragged down to a similar fate.

These things became habits for Ash. Something as fundamental to his life as the fight for survival in the cold winter months. He told his stories and screamed and cried. Then somehow some of those stories began to feel like actual campfire stories. The emotions felt distant. Like they happened as long ago as they actually had. Maybe even to someone else.

It was about this time that he realized other things were changing too. The winter had started to thaw and the snow banks were slowing melting. Then one day he found a wildflower poking through a muddy patch.

He knelt down to get a closer look. The bright purple of it was shocking after the greyish browns and dark greens of winter. He gently stroked the soft petals so delicate he barely felt them on his calloused fingers. Had he ever noticed the thin elegance of a flower like this before? It was as if it held all the majesty of divinity in it's tiny perfect curves.

The beauty was so overwhelming that he started to cry. He sank into the emotion and realized that these tears weren't quite like the old ones. Part of him was grieving over missing so much beauty in the world for so long, that was true. There was also the part of him who was just so touched by the beauty of that simple flower that there was no reasonable response except to cry at the joy of it.

He sat there a long time, letting the spring breeze chill his tear-tracked face. He held onto that joy as long as it would stay, greedy for it.

Eventually, though, it passed. He stood and bowed his head in respect to his little flower. Then he continued on his way.

Slowly, spring truly came. The occasional wildflower in the snow gave way to fields of them bobbing in the wind. The trees shook off their dreary gray and grew plump green buds. Ash would lay in the grass and suck in the sun as if it was he was a flower too. With the changes of the season, Ash felt his spirit awakening too.

Without much conscious decision, he started making plans to go back. He tried to find a reasonable explanation for showing back up. They might really be happy with him gone for good but there had to be someone who would still be happy to see him. There was a new part of him that was confident he would find someone happy to see him.

So, as the days grew longer, Ash made his plans to leave the mountains. He had his crying spells and raging fits but it was different somehow. Spring had somehow wormed it's way into him and even how he viewed his Brokeness.

When the time finally came, it was still hard to leave though. It was as if he was leaving a lifetime there. He went to his pit where the last fire had been extinguished hours ago. He gathered the ash of his past life and made one last drawing. He drew a simple flower in the midst of all his battered nightmares.

It was that first flower after winter. It had been his first sign of hope. That hope had grown into a quiet assurance that things could change. His time had come. He finally believed he could grow again.

Ash had a chance at spring again.

...

A/N: I wrote this at the same time as the first chapter but didn't know how to finish it until now. Hopefully you have spring soon as well :)


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